Troll: A Love Story

[fajrdrako]

Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo is a fascinating book, and I don't even know what genre to call it. Fantasy? Mainstream? Horror? It has aspects of myth and faux natural science.... it's "dark fantasy", I guess. It's a wonderful story about a gay Finnish photographer named Mikael who one night - after being rejected by the man he wants - finds up a young troll curled up in an alleyway where boys were tormenting it. He takes it home and his life is never the same again.

To a large extent it's the story of the people around Mikael. Mikael is called Angel because he is so gorgeous - and it's no accident that fair-haired Mikael is a physical contrast to the small, dark, demonic troll. We see the troll through his eyes - he finds if beautiful, and so did I, not just because he said so: also because the descriptions sounded like a small version of Nightcrawler from the X-Men. We see Mikael through the eyes of others: the abused Filipino mail-order-bride from the apartment downstairs, the entrepreneur Marti, or the geekish Ecko, who loves Mikael from afar. We never get the troll's point of view but we don't really need to.

I don't usually like urban fantasy, but I loved the combination of the mythic and the modern. I found it difficult to put down, and from page to page, I couldn't guess what was going to happen, though when it did happen, it seemed inevitable.

Comments

[jkluge.livejournal.com]

The reviewers keep referring to the ending as "horrible" and "disturbing" -- should I be warned/alarmed by this? I'm not sure I'm in the bestframe of mind to read anything particularly violent or disturbing or nightmarish. Your take?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's a hard call. Yes, what happens is horrific, but the tone of the book on the whole wasn't horrible or even frightening, at least, not to my eyes, and I'm a terrible wimp. I never read horror books for that reason. (Almost never.) Though on one page there is possibly the most amazing cliffhanger I have ever read. I didn't find it disturbing - it was too well set up to be that. A couple of things happen that are indeed nightmarish but they didn't 'feel' nightmarish to me because it was such a rational chain of cause and event. On the other hand - maybe it's a case of 'if in doubt, don't try it'. Among other oddities, something bad happens to a character I had really come to like.

[jkluge.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate your input *and* your generosity in taking the time to give your thoughts and analysis. Very helpful! Bless you. I'm musing over it -- it's only about $3.75 used on Amazon, so I might take the plunge.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

At $3.75 i'd say it's worth the gamble, and if you don't like it you can still give it to someone for Christmas.